For all the talk about online video sites like Netflix and Hulu eating the cable companies' lunches, don't overlook the cable Video on Demand product, which is already hooked up to your TV, and typically includes thousands of free titles.
Comcast announced today that it's seeing about 350 million VOD programs viewed per month, and just passed 20 billion all-time.
It says its 20 million eligible subscribers view about 175 million hours per month, which comes out to about 8 hours, 45 minutes per subscriber, or 17.5 programs. (Not everyone uses VOD, so it's probably significantly higher among those who do use it.)
For comparison, Netflix streaming users watched almost 10 hours each on average in March, according to Nielsen, and Hulu viewers streamed about 5 hours, 15 minutes each. (To be clear, these aren't apples-to-apples comparisons vs. the Comcast numbers, but at least they don't seem to be off by orders of magnitude.)
And all of these are still peanuts compared to the more than 150 hours of TV that the average American watches per month.
Related: We're So Addicted To Our Phones That We Can't Even Watch TV Without Staring At Them Anymore
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
